


How To Win Over Your Sour Gymnast

by fotoshop_cutout



Series: Wet and Wild [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Sea World AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 08:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fotoshop_cutout/pseuds/fotoshop_cutout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sterek; Sea World AU. Stiles is a dolphin trainer, Derek's the new gymnast for the dolphin show. Stiles may have a thing for Derek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Win Over Your Sour Gymnast

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd. I plan for there to be more of this 'verse at a later date.

The first time Stiles saw him in the Condor outfit, he might have gotten a little flustered. Okay, a _lot_ flustered, but come on, he was _ripped_. Like, he made him feel so inadequate. He just clamped his lips shut and stuck close to Alohi and Ano'i, the two dolphins he was currently dedicating his life to. So what if his cheeks were a little more red than normal? Alohi clicked at him as Coach clapped his hands.

“Alright everyone, here we go! Dress rehearsal to make sure the _new guy_ doesn't screw everything up royally.” He looked at Derek, the one and the same guy that Stiles was making sure _not_ to look at, “You get that, new guy?”

Derek huffed and rolled his eyes, even as he pulled on an insincere smile and pumped a fist in the air. “Go team!”

Ah, this guy could help him teach Scott the meaning of _sarcasm_. Wonderful! He looked around and spotted Lydia preening along with the two Macaws that sat on her outstretched arm. He flashed her a smile, which she ignored as per usual and everyone started jostling around to get into the correct positions.

Overall Stiles couldn't complain—the water was warm and the girls were always happy to see him (as long as he was carrying food)—so today would be a good day, as long as they didn't piss off Coach. In his green wetsuit, he stood off to one side, making sure that Alohi and Ano'i were paying attention to him (they were always paying attention to him). He drummed his fingers, waiting for his cue while the leading lady was busy doing her part. _He_ thought everything was going well, and it wasn't even his fault when things went wrong. He had been content _not_ to watch Derek during the dress rehearsal, no matter how much he might be tempted to sneak a peek, but then Coach had started screaming for everyone to go out there.

There wasn't anything obviously wrong when they all ventured out, looking a mix between frustrated and hesitant. They'd been working really hard to perfect this show and they had it pristine when one of the Condor gymnasts had decided that the job wasn't good enough and moved on. So now they had been bringing the new guy up to speed and that had taken them out of the rotation for three weeks now. Of course they were all frustrated. This time they were called out for another injury—one of the other Macaw handlers had tried to pull a Lydia and wear heels while doing her job. So she was sitting there with a sprained ankle and—was that Derek up in the sky?

The gymnast was sitting on the trapeze bar that Stiles wouldn't touch in a million years, seemingly miles in the sky. Stiles squinted up at him. Oh my, what a perfect view of his ass.

“Sti—Oh for God's sake—Stiles stop staring at the New Guy's ass and go get the first aid kit!” Coach yelled over at him. He jerked his gaze away and blushed hotly as everyone glanced his way. He ran his hand over his buzzed hair and licked his lips, preparing to laugh it away. Derek smirked down at him, he smiled back. “NOW, STILINSKI!”

Stiles took off back behind the partition and nabbed it, double-timing it over the side of the stage to hand off the kit. He was still trying to get his blush to go away.

So that was that and they were to reconvene later to go over it again—lunch break.

-

Scott and Jackson were already sitting down with their food. Danny and Greenberg were clustered around Jackson, Scott was off alone... and not paying Stiles any mind as he waved. What the fuuuu—oh, that new Orca trainer had his attention. Lydia had gone to sit with her and Stiles looked after her wistfully. If only he could talk her into a wetsuit.

He sunk down in the chair next to Scott and started to unwrap his sandwich. “How are the little lions today?”

“Isn't she pretty?” Scott replied dreamily. Stiles rolled his eyes and watched as Derek sat down away from everyone else.

“Yes, Scott, she's very pretty but that's not what I was asking about.” His dry tone seemed to be the key to snapping Scott out of it.

“Oh, sorry dude. What did you say?” Scott looked sheepish enough, so Stiles wouldn't rag on him. Besides, it might encourage him.

“I asked about the sea lions.” He took a huge bite of his sandwich.

“Oh, they're good. You know how they are. Did Sarah get hurt or something?” Way to go Scott, noticing a girl other than Allison!

Stiles spoke around his mouthful, “Yeah, tried to be Lydia and ran up the bleachers in heels. Sprained ankle.”

Scott squirmed in his seat and made a vaguely frowny face. “Do you think Allison would want to go out with me?”

Way to change the topic, Scott. And so lunch continued, with much topic changing and talking about Allison (whether Stiles wanted to or not).

-

They finally got back on the show rotation, so he was busy cleaning up after one of _those_ when Scott ran up to him. Derek glanced over, more from the flurry of movement than any actual interest, Stiles was sure, and narrowed his eyes slightly before ducking his head and continuing his stretching.

“You have to ask her out for me.” Scott huffed out, still (depressingly) out of breath. Had he run all the way over from the sea lion exhibit? He should be more careful, what with his asthma. Stiles pulled a shirt over his head.

“Why can't you do it yourself?” He looked at Scott sidelong. Scott whined at him.

“Come on man, I'd do it for you!”

“You would?” Stiles turned to look at him now, one eyebrow raised. Scott seemed to hesitate and not-so-subtly glanced over at Derek.

“Maybe not.” His eyes darted back to Stiles, “But come on, please?”

Back to begging then. He _could_ refuse, but Scott was passive-aggressive and figured the best way to get him back for something like that was to make sure he did stupid things in front of Lydia. Or Jackson, on a bad day. Jackson was so much worse...

“Alright, what do you want me to say?” He sighed. He was such an _awesome_ best friend.

-

So he waited for Allison to finish feeding a couple of the younger orcas before approaching her. She was still in her wetsuit, probably just finishing up by the looks of it. Huh, he hadn't realized how much later they she and Danny had to work. He shoved his hands in his pockets, offering her a smile.

“Hey Stiles, what's up?” Oh, wasn't she such a peach? He could totally see why Scott liked her. He ran his hand over his buzzed hair.

“Oh, you know, just stuff.” He was officially _shit_ at talking to girls. At least this was a step up from what usually came out around Lydia. Those were mostly guttural sounds and gibberish. Allison gave him a look that said she thought he was odd. He beamed at her as he tried to redeem himself.

“I'm here on Scott's behalf.”

That seemed to make her perk up. That was a good thing, right? “What is it?”

He cleared his throat and straightened up, ignoring that Danny was going to meet someone who had just come through the gate across the water. “This is from him, so, here it goes.”

“I was kind of wondering if you were busy tonight, because I'd really like to take you out to dinner. If you are busy, it's okay, I won't take offense, unless of course—” He could see her melting at first, a pretty smile covering her lips, but then he stopped abruptly and cleared his throat again.

“Ah, well, he kind of went off on a tangent while he was telling me what to say.” Her face lit up and she laughed softly.

“That sounds like him.”

“So how about it?”

She seemed to consider it, and then nodded. “Sure, tell him that I'd love to.”

Stiles smiled and went to turn away, to go back and tell Scott the good news, but she called him back. “Oh, and Stiles?”

Her hand touched his face gently and her lips touched his cheek. He might have been a little stunned. “Tell him that I expect him to pick me up here after I'm finished.”

While she spoke he heard the sound of the gate closing again and he saw Danny walking back, glancing over at the two of them. He nodded at her dumbly and flashed a smile before he started back across the park.

-

“So the good news is that you have a dinner date for tonight. The bad news is that you're bailing on me for the fourth time this week.”

Scott pumped his fist in the air in victory, but then looked like Stiles had kicked his baby sea lion. “You know I couldn't help it, Clyde got really sick! What was I supposed to do?”

Stiles clapped a hand on his shoulder in a forgiving manner. “It's alright, I don't blame you. I'll just have to figure out something to do.”

Scott nodded solemnly, like he had just imparted some great wisdom. He snapped his fingers and lit up like a freakin' christmas tree. “You should totally ask out Derek!”

Stiles rolled his eyes, “Yeah, probably not.”

“What? Why not?”

Stiles shrugged and looked away, Scott thumped him on the back, walking with him toward the dolphin exhibit. “Come on man, he's not _that_ scary when he's out of costume.”

Stiles scoffed, “Yeah, _that's_ what I was worried about. His _costume_.”

From there they ended up chatting easily about Stiles' green wetsuit for the shows and how he actually is quite comfortable in it, thank you, and then about the part in the Clyde & Seamore Show that was opening up. Scott was interested in it, though he thought that maybe Jackson would go for it.

They were almost to the employee gate when Derek came out, car keys in his hand. Scott pushed him toward him in such a way that it would look really strange if he didn't go with it. _Thank you_ , Scott. Stiles threw a glare at him over his shoulder, but approached anyway.

“Hey, so you're leaving?” He tried on his most fetching smile. It probably looked more awkward than anything. Derek glanced at him and wiggled his keys instead of verbally replying. Kind of like an 'Uh, duh?' Stiles rubbed the back of his head and glanced back toward the employee gate and then back at Derek. “Wait up for me? I just have to grab my stuff.”

Derek gave a sigh, but leaned back against the wall. Railing? It was solid, but it was short. So maybe a railing. Stiles grinned and raced off toward the gate. It took a couple of tries to get in.

His flailing run caught pretty much everyone's eyes, but they passed it off as being a Stiles thing and didn't stop him. Derek was still where he left him, texting someone now, and glanced up at him. He gave him a slightly cheesy smile, “Okay, all set now.”

They started toward the employee parking at a sedate pace. When it was clear that Derek wasn't up for starting the conversation, Stiles did. Because that's Stiles for you.

“So how are you not afraid of being up so high?”

Derek gave him a strange look, “How are you not afraid of drowning?”

“Touché.” Stiles snaps his fingers and points at Derek. Derek's eyes flick down to look at the movement, flick back up and then he's checking his phone for a text. Man, tough crowd. He rubs a hand nervously over his head and waits until they're almost at the cars before he speaks up.

“You busy tonight?”

Derek's head jerks up suddenly and he's pinned with a look that makes him stop. He furrows his eyebrows, “What?”

“Don't you have a date?”

Wait. What? “Well I was hoping to...”

“I'm not going to be second-choice, Stiles. Forget it.”

“What?” Seriously. What? He—were they even in the same conversation?

“Allison rejected you, right? Now you're asking me.” He was a little worked up about this and Stiles just felt out of the loop. “Just go home, Stiles.”

Derek was walking away, unlocking his car before Stiles took off after him. “I didn't ask Allison out. I'm ga—okay, Lydia's an exception—but otherwise I'm totally gay.”

Derek paused, his driver's side door open. He shook his head, muttered under his breath and hauled himself into the seat. Stiles felt like he was at a total loss.

“So that wasn't you I saw over there?” Huh? When? What? Stiles started to shake his head and then facepalmed.

“You saw that disaster?” He peeked between his fingers at Derek. He nodded with the same 'Uh, duh?' look from earlier. Stiles groaned again and scrubbed at his face with his hand.

“Man, Scott was the one asking Allison out. He just made me ask her for him.”

Derek had a disappointed look on his face and Stiles was about to open his mouth again but Derek was already speaking, an edge to his tone. “Now you're lying about it? Smooth, Stiles.”

Annnnnnd he closed his door. Great. Wonderful.

-

That night Stiles spent drinking an average amount of beer, downing a sickly sweet cocktail he'd convinced himself he'd try, and played some Battlefield 3 in lieu of actually killing someone (Scott). He might have dialed Derek's number once, but hung up before he had a chance to answer, and wallowed a bit. He rage quit Battlefield 3 when a hacker started hunting him down because he killed him once. Life sucked.

-

“All I'm saying is that you might want to work on it a little more, make it a little more flashy because you sucked out there, Stilinski.” Coach proceeded to pat him on the shoulder like he was consoling him. He wasn't.

Stiles resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “Sure, Coach.”

“That's my boy!” Another hard thump on his back and Stiles winced a little. He started walking toward the showers, way behind everyone else.

When he finally gets over to the sea lion exhibit to eat lunch with Scott, he finds Allison there, smiling and waving and he guesses that the date went well last night. He sits next to her and pulls out a doublestacked BLT sandwich, glancing around as he unwraps it from the plastic. “So how was last night?”

He doesn't really need to ask, but he figures it's only polite. Not that he especially wants to hear her gush about her _awesome_ date with his best friend while he spent the night moping and getting drunk, but he's a good friend what can he say? Needless to say she's beaming a smile at him that's a little too bright to look at, so he looks down at his sandwich instead. He nods when he's supposed to and says things like “Yeah, Scott's like that...”

She takes a bite of her veggie wrap when she winds down and speaks around it in a dainty way, “So how was your night?”

An innocent question, really, but since she asked... He gives a dark chuckle and shakes his head, “Funny thing, actually, I went to ask Derek out,”

“Oh, he's a hunk!” She says, as if that really matters now. He glances sideways at her and wonders about this girl he's talking to as he continues.

“Yeah well, apparently he thinks that I was trying to ask you out yesterday and now he won't give me the time of day.” Kind of literally. Not like Derek was talkative to begin with, but at least he spoke before. Now he just glowered in Stiles' general direction. It had only been half a day, but Stiles had just about had it.

Scott has managed to sneak up on him and he slides onto the bench in between Stiles and Allison as she begins to respond to Stiles. “Oh. Do you want me to talk to him? Straighten it out and everything?”

“Who are we talking about?” Scott's adorably looking around like he has no idea. Stiles would wager he knows exactly who they're talking about, he just wanted in on the conversation.

“Derek. Apparently he thinks Stiles was asking me out yesterday and so wouldn't go out with him last night.” She was really a sweetheart.

“Oh, really? That sucks dude.” A shoulder bump of camaraderie and Stiles is beginning to wonder if Allison's actually good for him or if Scott's going to become a flaky best friend. Stiles is hoping she was a good idea 'cause she's nice. He supposes that even if Scott gets flaky he'll still stick around because Allison's not really all that bad.

He shrugs. “If you want to get involved I wouldn't say no. I'm hoping he'll just come around, though.”

Scott nods as if Stiles just said something of sagely wisdom. Allison flashes him a smile and leans around Scott to look at Stiles. “I'll pop over there and catch him before the next show, yeah?”

It makes him nervous and he wants to say no way, just don't say anything and he'll wait for Derek to come around, but he just puts the other half of his sandwich back in the plastic and wraps it back up. His stomach's too upset to finish it now. He gets up and uncaps his Gatorade, taking a long swig before he speaks. “Well I should run. I'll stop by before I leave. Or something.”

He scratches at the back of his head as Scott nods at him and Allison waves as he heads off. It already feels kind of normal, having lunch with the two of them. He wonders how long it'll last.

-

He sees Allison pull Derek aside on their way to the theater again. He sees Derek glance his way, but he steadfastly won't meet his gaze. Allison's bright and smiley as she trots off again while Derek's still glowering as he makes his way to the theater. Stiles thinks maybe Allison over-estimated her powers of persuasion. Maybe Derek had just been looking for an excuse to get out of going out with him. Maybe now that this one seemed flimsy, he'd find some other excuse and Stiles would just have to mope and give up and watch him and his rockin' bod from afar.

His performance wasn't much better than last time, he almost missed a cue and tripped over his own feet, flailing as he fell into the water at another point. At least he did it when he was supposed to dive in this time.

-

“BILINSKI! Hey, I thought you said you'd do better this time around?” Coach gesticulates wildly when he catches up to him, “That? That wasn't better! Get your act together, kid, or I'll just get Greenberg to fill in for you.”

Stiles grumbles, “Greenberg works with Stingrays, Coach.”

“EXACTLY! So get it together.” Coach saunters off, mumbling under his breath, probably about Stiles but maybe about Greenberg. Stiles has his wetsuit off of his torso when Derek walks up to him and leans against the lockers.

“Can I help you?” So maybe Stiles is a bit testy after the horrid night/day he's had. Derek's looking between his own hands and Stiles' bare chest. Stiles puts his hands on his hips as if to emphasize the question he just asked.

It takes Derek a little while, “I wanted to apologize.”

Stiles watches him with a level gaze, expecting the apology to follow, but Derek just plays with his phone. So he huffs at him. “Okay, so where is it?”

“Where's what?” Derek's gaze jumps up to meet his, eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“The apology.”

Derek doesn't say anything, he just ducks his head and plays with his phone, turning it over and over in his hands. Stiles ends up sighing and reaches for a towel to start drying off. He's patting down his shoulders when Derek speaks up. “Are you free tonight?”

The towel drops down to his fingertips and settles there, on the verge of falling to the floor. “Tonight?”

He tries to play it cool, shrugging a little and flicking the towel so it's hanging over a shoulder. “I don't know. Why?”

Derek looks at him somewhere between amused and irritated. He supposes he better lay off the acting like Scott. He starts to wriggle out of the rest of his wetsuit. “Yes, alright, I'm super-lame and have nothing to do. What did you want?”

“Dinner and a movie?” The proposal sounded good. Stiles pretended to think about it as he dried the rest of himself, trying not to think of the way that Derek was kind of ogling him. He wraps the towel around his waist and does a one-shoulder shrug.

“Sure, why not?”

Derek nods once and pushes himself off of the lockers, back to looking at his phone. “I'll meet you out by the cars.”

Stiles frowned as he watched Derek walk away. Okay, maybe he owed Allison some flowers or chocolate or something.

-

Stiles heads home, having agreed to a time and place, and changes. At first he starts fretting about what to wear, but he aborts that and wears his Jawesome t-shirt and a pair of skinny black jeans because he likes them. He vaguely remembers the panicked 'what should I do with my hair?' thought crossing his mind, but one look in the mirror and he was _so_ glad that he had it buzzed.

After that he just waited, flipping through channels until he could climb into his powder blue Jeep and head off to his date. His date with _Derek_. Oh god yes!

-

What's really exciting, though, is not just how much they have in common (who knew that Derek liked Deadpool so much?) but what happens when Stiles is trying to say goodnight. Derek's walked him to his car and Stiles is leaning back against it, hands in his pockets as he talks and talks about how he kind of misses reading Batman and is Derek into him too? That's when Derek just kind of... _pounces_. Stiles is caught not knowing if he should pull his hands out of his pockets or not, and he decides not because he really has no room to, and Derek's tongue is pressing against the seam of his lips.

Of course Stiles flicks his tongue out to meet Derek's and there's a small shift in positions as Derek tries to get closer, making it so Stiles can get his hands free. Once his hands are out they just roam. Everywhere, too, skittering down his sides, tangling in his hair, running his nails down his back, gripping his shoulders...

The sounds that Derek is pulling from him are sinful and shouldn't be allowed in public, so that's naturally when he pulls back with a gasp. Derek won't stop, though, and starts in on his jaw and down his neck. The older man's stubble rakes against his skin but it feels so _good_. He forgets what he was trying to do for a moment.

It's only when he's pressed back hard into the door handle that he remembers and eases Derek back with a gentle, steady push against his chest. His voice is breathy when he manages to form words.

“Not that I'm extremely happy about this, but...”

Derek looks confused at first, but he puts it together when he looks around and sees that yes, they are in the middle of a restaurant/bar parking lot. He takes another step back and clears his throat. “My place or yours?”

Stiles has never been more happy in his life.

-

He owes Allison flowers _and_ chocolate.


End file.
